


Hearth and Home

by Palebluedot



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Fireplaces, Fluff and Smut, London, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, but yeah this is basically just 4.6K of self-indulgent feel-good porn, teeny bit of angst bc the three months figure in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 23:25:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13064361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: The fingers in his hair give a sweet little twist. “Someone's eager,” James says, an amused huff of breath tickling the shell of Thomas's ear.“Afterthree months,”Thomas replies, now nosing at the soft skin below James's ear, “and threebloodyhours discussing strategy with Peter....” He experiments with drawing his tongue across James's pulse, feels it quicken under his lips. “I hope I can be forgiven.”





	Hearth and Home

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, one million years ago, [bean-about-townn](https://www.bean-about-townn.tumblr.com) was like "we need more fic of them fucking in front of a fireplace" and I was like "hold my beer." Thanks for holding onto that beer for like a month pal, I can take it back now.

By the time Peter's carriage departs the fires have been lit.

Thomas sees the glow from the hearth over James's shoulder just after the study door clicks shut at his back, and just before James presses flush against him, thighs, chest, lips, and Thomas's eyes can do nothing but slide closed. A slow inhale turns into a low, honeyed moan when stoked by James's searching fingertips dragging over his scalp. James's beard scratches just a little when he grins. “That still works, then,” he murmurs, pleased.

“Oh, just kiss me,” Thomas laughs, and takes James's face in both his hands as he returns to sipping the wine of his lips. But as drunk as he grows on James's mouth, he flows without thought to kissing along the line of his jaw, then sucking at the hollow his throat, then scraping his teeth against the jut of his collarbone.

The fingers in his hair give a sweet little twist. “Someone's eager,” James says, an amused huff of breath tickling the shell of Thomas's ear.

“After _three months_ ,” Thomas replies, now nosing at the soft skin below James's ear, “and three _bloody_ hours discussing strategy with Peter....” He experiments with drawing his tongue across James's pulse, feels it quicken under his lips. “I hope I can be forgiven.”

James tugs at Thomas's neckcloth, and for a moment Thomas believes he is being directed back to James's mouth, but then it falls away entirely, dropped to the floor. “Are you asking me for a pardon?” James asks, oh-so-innocently, and Thomas has to smother his laughter with a kiss.

“I am asking you to let me get you out of these clothes,” Thomas corrects him, voice quiet and mouth close. “A simple enough request – unless, of course, you think we ought to first consult Parliament on the matter.”

“To hell with Parliament,” James declares, emphasizing with a wicked nip to Thomas's bottom lip. “Do with me as you will.”

With an invitation like that, Thomas has no choice but to push James's coat from his broad shoulders. James's neckcloth shortly joins Thomas's on the floor, and button by taunting button, his stiff shirt falls open, and James shrugs it free. At last, James's soft undershirt is lifted over his head and discarded, and there is nothing between Thomas's hands and the muscled planes of James's chest but warmth – and gooseflesh, Thomas realizes with rapt delight. Whether from his own touch or that of the air around them he cannot say, but gooseflesh rises on James's skin, peppered in amongst sun-darkened freckles.

“After the more favorable climate in Nassau, the London winter has proven something of a shock,” James admits a touch gruffly upon noticing the curious swipes of Thomas's thumbs.

“My poor love,” Thomas sighs, sympathy somewhat dampened by a teasing smile. Slowly, he backs James towards the hearth. “I'm sure you're positively sighing for the tropics.”

“Mm, pining hopelessly,” James agrees. He drapes his arms over Thomas's shoulders and matches him step for shuffling step, and the gathering firelight stokes the gleam in his eye. “For three months I thought of nothing but home, but now that I've arrived, I find I'd rather be stretched out beneath the sun on some faraway beach.”

When he feels the hearth rug beneath his feet and the fire's heat on his skin, Thomas brings their course to a gentle halt. “A fine way to pass an hour, to be sure. But however would you divert yourself when you grew weary of lying idle?” Standing here, blissfully close, James's hardening length pressed against Thomas's hip proves impossible to ignore, and so too does the image it sends like a vision into his mind: James, lying bare and prone on white sands before blue waters, bringing himself to his pleasure under the sun with a lazy hand.

“Oh, think of you, I'm sure,” James says with a small smile that only grows when he leans in close to whisper conspiratorially in Thomas's ear, “I did have so _very_ much practice all those nights I spent alone.”

Thomas groans. “And what did you think of the most?” he whispers back, hoarse, turning and nuzzling at James's hairline as his hands roam over his back. His nails dig in just a touch — his skin has _missed_ this skin.

James's lips do not have to travel far to seal over Thomas's throat. The sweet, sharp sting of the biting kiss he sears there like a brand contrasts deliciously with the diffuse burn of James's hips rocking against Thomas's, and when James's hand snakes between their bodies to palm at Thomas's cock through his trousers, Thomas thinks he has his answer. But he did not fall in love with a man who never proves him wrong. At last satisfied with the state of Thomas's neck, James trails heated kisses across Thomas's face until his lips hover just a hair's breadth from Thomas's lips.

“Your mouth,” he murmurs, hot and close. “ _God,_ I missed your mouth.” James reaches up to trace the seam of Thomas's lips and Thomas opens up, just enough to let the tip of James's finger slip inside. He watches James's transfixed gaze grow dark, then darker still as he sucks that finger in to the first knuckle, circles it with a teasing tongue.

With a satisfied smile, Thomas pulls back. “Then why don't you lie here by the fire, love,” he suggests sweetly. “You can pretend the heat from the flames is the southern sun, and that my mouth on you is nothing but a fantasy, and it'll be as though you never sailed back into winter at all.”

“You say that as though I need _convincing_ to let you between my legs,” James remarks, and with a last playful kiss to Thomas's lips, he slowly kneels and does as he's bid.

Thomas fetches a pillow from a nearby chair, a plush, green thing, then he kneels to join James on the hearth rug. He sets it down, but reaches out a hand to stop James from resting his head atop it just yet. Then, savoring each resulting copper glint of firelight, he slowly unties the ribbon that binds James's hair. Utterly enchanted, Thomas tucks a stray lock behind James's ear, then buries his hand in fire-kissed hair completely, leaving it less orderly than he found it. Dark eyes, flushed cheeks, leaning into Thomas's hand — _beautiful._ Thomas means to sigh his praises, but finds himself kissing James instead, then growing heavy with it, the slow gravity easing James down until, at last, he lies with his hair spilling from the pillow to the rug, ready for Thomas to perch properly astride him.

So flooded with warmth does each touch of James's lips leave him, Thomas is reluctant to move. He eases himself through it by pressing a long kiss to the corner of James's mouth, then another to the edge of his jaw. Another where the blood beats strongest in his neck, another where the skin of his throat is softest. When Thomas slides down James's body to better reach his chest, heaving and already growing pink, two rough hands curl in the hair at Thomas's nape. A whole series of kisses to James's stomach, where he's soft and hard in equal measure; he dips his tongue in his navel just to feel him squirm.

The farther he progresses down, down, the longer he lingers. He _knows_ this body, felt its absence like a phantom pain, and reacquaintance is the only balm. Both cheeks he drags against the fine dusting of hair slipping beneath the fabric of his trousers before kissing there, too. He eases those trousers down just far enough to get at the firm line of muscle sloping from hip to thigh, mouths his way down inch by inch until he runs out of skin, tugs James's breeches down the barest hint more — and receives an impatient little push to the top of his head.

Thomas glances up to find James propped up on one elbow, staring down at him with fond-eyed, red-cheeked exasperation, and he tucks his smile into one last self-indulgent kiss to James's hipbones before dutifully unbuttoning the placket of his trousers and pushing them down in earnest. He sneaks one quick open-mouthed adoration to the inside of James's knee after he pulls James's boots and socks off his feet and before his breeches and smallclothes follow, then he crawls back up between James's legs. Licks his lips. His own eyes are very dark now, he's sure.

Once positioned, the first thing he does is to bury his nose in dense auburn curls. To breathe. To _smell_ — musk and sweat and want. The hands threaded once more through Thomas's hair quake now, but do not rush him as he drags his mouth lightly up the side of James's cock, flushed and waiting and surely aching. At the head, Thomas parts his lips just enough to tease the tip with soft little kitten-lick kisses, and is immediately rewarded with a sharp burst of wetness on his tongue. Humming low in his throat, Thomas opens up, lets the whole head pass his slick lips and sucks, so as not to miss a drop. James tugs at his hair, pulling him closer, so Thomas takes him in farther, deeper, and feels the tension melt from his lover as he falls back onto the pillow.

One step back, two steps forward, Thomas works him an inch at a time. As James grows wetter, from Thomas's mouth and his own pleasure, Thomas grows hungrier, until James has gotten his cock wet well down its length. At the base, he adds his hand and the occasional slow, loose tug. James's quaking thighs and jumping hips and tugging fingers set the rhythm of the hollowing of Thomas's cheeks, the bobbing of his head, the lapping of his tongue. Muscle memory, stretching and sighing upon waking. Thomas's muffled sounds of contentment mingle with James's ragged breath and the crackle of the fire — but one member of the choir is notably absent.

Puzzled, Thomas glances up, and sees that their long separation has resurrected a habit he thought he'd coaxed out of James long ago. Half-hidden in the strange shadows thrown by the shifting fire, he lies with his eyes screwed shut, and the side of his fist pressed tight against his mouth. Still so afraid of being overheard. But there are no spies lurking outside their ring of firelight. They're quite alone, the two of them, just a man who wants desperately to cry out, and a man who longs, _has_ longed, to hear him. To both of these ends, Thomas shifts himself so he's more squarely on all fours, raises his head until only the barest hint of pressure from his lips keeps them connected, then in one swift movement swallows him down so far that the head of James's cock nudges the back of his throat. He nearly falters — he _is_ out of practice, after all — but no matter, a high, quavering, _wonderful_ whimper slips past James's lips.

Determined now, Thomas repeats the experiment and, to his delight, earns another broken little sound. He returns his attention to the tip and licks hard against the sensitive underside of James's cock, just below the head. Repeating the motion with firm, steady laps, he pumps the rest of James's length, quick and tight, and oh, _finally_ , that hand flies from James's face and slaps against the hearth rug, makes a fist there instead as he moans deep and long. Glancing up, Thomas finds James's face tilted towards the ceiling, but he pictures pink cheeks, slack lips, hooded, glassy eyes, and wants badly to rut against the rug. Sound, though, he need not imagine, for now each suck and clever swirl of his tongue pairs with a snatch of half-coherent babble — “ _Oh_ Christ, Thomas, _Thomas._ ” He feels the ties holding James together spring apart beneath his tongue one after another, he's close, Thomas can _taste_ it, his mouth waters and his own cock strains with the knowledge that he'll soon taste _more_ — and then James frantically taps the side of his chin twice with two fingers, and Thomas pulls off at once.

“Is everything —”

“Not yet,” James pants, voice wrecked, still staring up at the ceiling. “Not until — ” He plants his feet a little further apart, weakly cants his hips up towards Thomas, and Thomas's spit-slick mouth begins to curve, half-hidden by the cuff of his sleeve as he wipes it clean.

“James, darling,” he begins, sly as he crawls back up James's body to look him in the eye, “are you asking me to fuck you?”

Below him, James's breathless grin turns wolfish, toothy. Thomas bites into it with teeth of his own, tugging at James's lips as James fumbles with his coat. He manages to put to right a good portion of the fastened buttons before Thomas forces himself off and away from him, and the coat lands heavily before Thomas is properly on his feet. James makes a displeased sound when Thomas steps out of reach, and Thomas feels his eyes on him as he crosses to the desk. After far too much useless scrabbling around the bottom drawer, his hand closes at last on the small vial of oil there stashed, and he holds it aloft in victory.

James, propped on one elbow and glowing all over with orange-rimmed shadows, regards him with one raised eyebrow and a smirking mouth. His color's still high from the hot fire's nearness and the narrowness with which he avoided release, friction with the pillow and the rug has worked absurd magic on his hair; he ought to be unraveled far past smugness, and yet he asks, “Do all respectable men keep such things on hand in their studies, my lord?”

“Well, _I_ never used to,” Thomas replies lightly. He knees the drawer shut and is drawn back easily to the well-matched warmths of their small fireside world: the firelight licking against his skin as he approaches, the imprint their bodies left on the rug, James's breath and touch and weight, now planted in his lap. “That is, until a certain insatiable lieutenant became my study's most frequent visitor, and I was forced to adapt.”

James barks a most undignified laugh. Thomas's heart twists a bit. He's heard such sounds so rarely, he'd nearly forgotten to miss them. “ _Insatiable?_ ” James repeats, faux-scandalized. Those eyes give away the game with their fondness.

“Oh, utterly impossible,” Thomas affirms. James's laugh rumbles in his ear now, and calloused fingers work quickly to strip Thomas down to his shirtsleeves. “And quite, quite irresistible.” Their work now done, James's fingers brush entreatingly against Thomas's knuckles, wrapped around the vial. Thomas opens his hand and presses the vial into James's palm. “Would you? You know how I...” He trails off, swallows. His eyes flicker from James's throat to his slow smile, then to the untwisting of the cork, the spread of James's thighs as he straddles Thomas's hips.

Yesterday, the ocean itself stood between them. Now, the oil that drips from James's fingers is caught by Thomas's. As James reaches around, Thomas's hand follows, making up for what he cannot see. His fingertips draped across James's knuckles, Thomas feels James circle his entrance, slow and careful. That first sigh from that first push inwards tickles Thomas's cheek. James rocks back minutely, his head lolls forwards, and they are closer still, parted lips grazing when panting breaths align just so. Transfixed, Thomas keeps his hands still, one holding James steady by the waist, one quietly mapping each tightening and relaxing of the tendons in James's hand. He won't turn one of those hands on himself, not yet, though his swollen cock begs for touch more with each needy little whimper and moan that falls from James's lips.

“Can you take another?” Thomas whispers as James moves more easily, more eagerly, and James nods, but before he can show Thomas the truth of it, Thomas slips in a finger of his own. A sharp gasp — then James bears down on a groan, rolls his hips, readily takes what Thomas gives him. Thomas follows James's lead, works him open nice and gradually. The drag of James's finger against his own quickens his pulse almost as much as the tight squeeze of him, the slick of the oil and the heat. He's content to push, pull out, push in a steady rhythm, James _does_ love it so — but he can't quite resist occasionally rubbing over the spot that makes James's breath stutter, makes his cock jump and drip over Thomas's white shirt. Out and in, twist and curl, out and in, in, in. As James relaxes, gasps against his lips and begins to fuck himself in earnest on their combined fingers, Thomas is tempted to take over, add a second finger, perhaps even a third, but instead removes himself altogether.

James whines a bit at the loss, and Thomas kisses the corner of his mouth in apology. “It's been so long, you should be the one to ensure that you're ready,” he explains.

James scoffs. “I trust you,” he says, but swiftly replaces Thomas's finger with one of his own, then adds another. At that third finger, James's head tilts back, exposing the column of his throat to Thomas's ravenous kisses. He still smells like the sea here and he moves like it too, unhurried undulations swelling until James is nearly writhing there in Thomas's lap. A choked-off moan hits Thomas's ears, another clear drop drips from the tip of James's cock and soaks into Thomas's shirt, then two hands push at his shoulders, his back hits the rug, and James crushes against him, kisses falling hot and desperate on his lips. “Do it, Thomas, _now_ , _please_ ,” he rasps, and Thomas would deny him for nothing.

Unfortunately, a fair amount of clothing separates them from _now_ , but once divided, the work proves swift, even with the frequent and distracting meetings of their mouths. Bare at last beneath James's appreciative eye, Thomas thrills. James trails warm, slick, reverent fingers down the side of Thomas's ribs, and he thrills again, and despite the fire's heat, it's his turn to feel the prickle of gooseflesh on his skin. With a pleased smile, James reaches for the oil. He tips a generous amount into his palm, lowers his hand and closes it around Thomas's cock, and the first touch of those sailor's fingers curls his toes. The smeared sheen of the oil glistens in the firelight as James slicks him up with an efficient, thorough hand. It's mesmerizing and maddening, but the sweet agony of _almost_ does not last long before James rises and positions himself over Thomas. The tip of Thomas's cock just grazes James's cleft, he nods in answer to the question James's eyes burn into him, then James sinks down and Thomas sinks _in_.

Thomas's blood sparks as James squeezes around him, and his mind delights in the sharp reality of the sensation. This is no night where wine and loneliness have blurred the distinctions between the object of his daydreams and his own hand, this is _James,_ warm and deliberate and heavy atop him _—_ and he prepared himself _well_ , after some shifting and one long, shuddering slide that pulls twin moans from both their throats, he has Thomas inside him quite fully. The synchrony of their relief and rapture inspires a bout of breathless laughter, a shared fond gaze. Carefully, Thomas pushes up from his elbows so he sits more upright, one palm braced on the rug, his other arm circling James's waist.

“Hello,” he murmurs adoringly, stroking the small of James's back. His pulse beats against James's walls as James adjusts his balance and bends to graze his lips and whiskers against Thomas's forehead. “I missed you,” he sighs for...oh, he's lost count.

James tightens around him experimentally. “You do seem pleased to see me,” he reports seriously, then jerks and laughs when Thomas pinches the soft skin of his rear. Thomas smirks, James rolls his eyes, then lets them slide closed when Thomas rolls a small, slow circle with his hips. Smiling faintly, James rubs an affectionate hand over Thomas's cheek, then groans, “Oh, I could just stay here all day.”

Thomas grins. “That's very romantic, darling, but I _had_ hoped for a _tad_ more energy — ”

“Oh, just lie back, would you?” James scolds, swatting Thomas's shoulder with a barely-concealed laugh.

Thomas obliges happily. He rests his head on the pillow and James partially follows him down, bracing his palms on Thomas's chest. Through all this shifting of weight, Thomas has slipped almost entirely from James by now, and from the gleam in James's eye, Thomas knows his plans to rectify this an instant before they come to fruition. James bears down. Thomas leaks and moans. James rolls his hips. Thomas sighs and burns. James rises, the pattern begins anew.

When Thomas first noticed that their urgent, stumbling kisses were leading them towards his study, he'd almost stopped them. All of his plans for James's homecoming had remembered how he would return to him fresh from three months of nights spent in hammocks; he'd intended to lay James out in his soft bed, let him be half-swallowed up by the plush mattress while Thomas welcomed him home. Now, though, Thomas is glad of his impatience. James _glows_ above him, a continuation of the nearby flame. His hair alone transfixes, Thomas is reminded of the gleam of copper kettles in the light of a red dawn, and that's to say nothing of the golden sheen on his skin, born of firelight and sweet exertion — then James tightens around him just, _just_ so, and the flash of pleasure melts such thoughts from Thomas's mind. Were they making love in the dark, there could be no doubt that this is his _James_ , returned to him at last.

“That worked for you, did it?” asks James, a hazy pride in his eyes. Thomas notices then how he's sunk his fingers into James's thighs.

“ _You_ work for me,” he says, and James huffs a pleased laugh. “But yes, it would be lovely if you did that again.” James obliges, and this time, instead of tautening all over, Thomas relaxes on a sigh.

Encouraged, James keeps a firm hold on Thomas, grinding down and turning his hips in long, luxuriant circles, and Thomas could swear that he's gone completely boneless with bliss until James decides to take matters in a more vertical direction and rises up a few inches. Surprising even himself, Thomas snaps his hips up and tugs James down by his, burying himself once more to the hilt and earning a punched-out sound of delight from James. It must be something ancient and animal, Thomas thinks, that has his blood purring with delight at the thought of James _filled_ by him so completely. Once indulged, that instinct only grows more insistent. Thomas withdraws, and this time when he drives back into James, he angles the thrust with more deliberate intention, and knows he's hit the mark when James's nails bite into his chest as he cries out.

That's what they settle on, in the end. They separate as much as they can bear, then with the aid of gravity and the push of Thomas's feet against the hearth rug, they re-collide in a burst of pleasure, again and again. Upon each of his thrusts, Thomas savors how full James is, how deep _he_ is, becomes overwhelmed by their closeness — but not quite so overwhelmed as James. His unraveling happens quickly. Between one drag of Thomas's cock against that good spot inside him and another, he lets loose a quavering little moan that Thomas has learned to interpret as a sign that the end is close at hand.

“I'm — _Christ_ , Thomas,” he strains to say. His thighs shake as he raises himself up, and when he sinks back down, he screws his eyes shut and draws his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment before he can manage to continue. “Would you — don't stop, but could you...?”

That's the last scrap of James's coherency gone, but it doesn't take much imagination for Thomas to infer what James wants. James's cock is hot and red with blood and slick with need under Thomas's hand, the poor neglected thing, and James keens at the first touch. Thomas, eager for James's release, doesn't tease. He pulls the foreskin up and over the head with each tug, and when he tries swiftly drawing his thumb over the tip, James's head lolls forward and he comes with a deep, grateful groan.

Thomas watches, mesmerized, as James's seed paints him from stomach to chest. Still stroking James with one hand, Thomas reaches down and scoops up all that he can of what's collected on his sternum. James whimpers when Thomas licks his fingers clean, and a few more drops weakly drip from his cock and onto Thomas's hand. When James is well and truly soft and his spine is curved towards him, Thomas unhands him and gingerly rolls them over so that James can lie on the rug.

“Welcome home,” Thomas whispers, then kisses James's damp temple, the side of his nose, the ridge of bone beneath his heavy-lidded eye. James makes no reply but for a small hum, and with another kiss to James's forehead, Thomas begins the delicate business of sliding free.

The foot pressing against his arse is a surprise. Looking to James for an explanation, Thomas finds a hard glint of determination buried behind his dreamy expression. “You finish what you started, you ridiculous man. I want to feel you,” James murmurs, looping his arms around the back of Thomas's neck. With a rush of lust and affection both, Thomas dutifully reverses course and carefully pushes in again with James hissing and sighing beneath him all the while.

All is gentle after that. Thomas knows how sensitive James is after he's come and keeps his thrusts slow, steady, and his cock thrums with gradually gathering pleasure. As his thoughts drift away from all subjects but gently pushing in, then out, how _wonderful_ it all feels, how sweetly it burns, James gradually returns to himself more fully and eases the reins from Thomas's hands. With a light touch, he assumes control of the unhurried kisses that pass between them like shared breath. His legs circle Thomas's waist, his calloused fingers stroke Thomas's hair, and between that embrace and the firelight licking over his back, Thomas hazily thinks he's never been so comfortably warm in all of his life. And when Thomas has to bury a moan in the crook of James's neck, James knows just what to say. “That's it,” he says, his breath tickling the shell of Thomas's ear. “Let go.”

Thomas does. He rocks into James a little faster, a little harder, lets the building warmth and pressure crest slowly within him until they break at last, and with a quiet cry, he spills in long, wet pulses, buried deep inside.

The crackling fire and Thomas's slowing breath and James's fingers weaving in and out of the hair at Thomas's nape keep a careless account of passing time. By and by, Thomas's nuzzling against James's shoulder evolves into a series of aimless kisses. James's laugh is a low rumble.

“God, it's good to be home,” he says to the ceiling. “There's nowhere in the world I'd rather be.”

Thomas gives a weary, lovestruck smile. “Nowhere? Not even upstairs, in a proper bed?”

“Well, you're down here, aren't you?” James counters, voice tinged with that gruffness that creeps in whenever he's said something particularly sentimental. Thomas _does_ adore that sound. He resolves to carry his sailor up to bed before the night is through, but he cannot yet will himself to move. No matter. James kisses his hair and they pass many a long, contented moment there by the fire, and are already tangled together tucked up in bed by the time the last embers fade out.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a little harder to reach on tumblr these days, but you can come yell with me about sweet London lovin' anytime at [brightbluedot.](https://www.brightbluedot.tumblr.com)
> 
> Comments are love! <3


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